'Round here at Squirrel Central, Friday night's long been New Comic Night. And last night's was epic.

• Black Summer has covered a lot of Ellis' usual ground, but enough of the stuff of his that I find appealing. I've really just been taken by Juan Jose Ryp's art, can't quite put my finger on it, but he creates such a texture on the page, helped along by the coloring. And as Danny at the LCS pointed out, it's one of the few where the interior delivers on (and often exceeds) the cover.
  
• Elephantmen War Toys conclusion — the whole Elephantmen project is one of the most infuriating and rewarding things going on now. It took about 6 or 8 issues for me to really appreciate how Starkings is bringing the whole story together, slowly and obliquely. And right as the series is building to a major plot point, he takes a break for this tale from the past. Moritat's art, usually very European sci-fi, here takes on a beautiful, loose quality.
  
• The Order finishes its run, cancelled by Marvel. I got into the series late, but all at once, and wanted to see how it ended. It was disappointing, but I felt that Fraction had so much planned for this series that there was no real way it could get wrapped up satisfactorily.
  
• The Immortal Iron Fist also concludes its storyline and, I believe, Fraction and Brubaker's run (if not now, soon). The story's been so much fun and handled so well, with a "how did someone not think of this already?" quality. And I was originally OK with having this talented team wrap it up — but they've left us with such a great premise, I wish they would keep telling the Iron Fist tale.
  
• Helen Killer, which I've been looking forward to since Chris first pointed it out. An insane, high-concept premise that simultaneously should've been done already and should never have been even made it out of brainstorming. And it promises to be wild fun, handled with a mix of an odd sort of reverence and tongue-in-cheek. Art's a little rough, but it's appropriate and tells the story.
  
• DC Universe 0 — well, io9 lied to me. Clearly, there was a lot worth reading out this week, and this wasn't really one of them. Mostly, it's just snippets from some major upcoming arcs with a framing device; maybe it's just me, so out of the DCU, but I didn't really find any of it compelling enough to follow through.
  

Free Comic Book Day today, and I'll be heading over to True Believers in a while. Richard Thompson's been sharing some of his FCBD Richard's Poor Almanac from the archives here and here, and presents today's here.

7000 BC is pleased to announce a new ongoing project: string, a monthly collection of comics from group members.

Now you can download a PDF of string #1 and string #2 — and check out some of the comics being produced in northern New Mexico (along with a couple RBS stories).